I'm sure 99% of people know how to do this, but since it isn't detailed in the user guide, I thought it might be worthwhile putting a guide on how to put playlists on your USB memory stick filled with files on the forum!

Note - this is written for Windows XP but the principle works fine on other operating systems - just adapt the instructions accordingly.

1. Put all your files on your memory stick in your usual manner.
2. Open Notepad in windows (Start > Run > "Notepad" > OK)
3. In the Notepad window, type one song per line in the order you want the playlist to play them.

You need to put the full name of the file and the extension (generally .mp3 or .m4a)

If you have a file in a subfolder, put the name of the subfolder first, then a backslash (\) then the song name. Continue this trend if you have subfolders within subfolders.

Here's an example of how a playlist should look:

In here we are playing songs from the root folder and subfolders. In fact, the Nineties subfolder has 1991 and 1992 subfolders within it - we can still play from these too!

4. In Notepad, click File then Save
5. Select your USB stick from the Save In list.
6. IMPORTANT - Select "All Files" from Save As Type!
7. Enter the name for your playlist in the File Name box, and put ".m3u" after it

The save prompt should look something like this:

I've highlighted the important bits in red.

8. Press Save and close notepad. To edit your playlist in future, simply right click it in Windows Explorer and select Open With > Notepad.

Some of your MP3 have folders listed, some don't. Does that imply that those MP3 are in the root of your USB drive? So you need the full path per MP3?
Going to take a while to get it going for me :-O I usually have my music in folders per artist then per album..

Do you happen to know how large the USB stick can be? Will it read 16GB?
Also, any idea on the amount of MP3 allowed?

Very nice guide, hopefully it works just as swell in Mac OS X, will try when I have my car eventually :-)

However, I don't think windows can format anything bigger than 32GB with the required "FAT32" file system. so I suspect that is max size.

To clarify, this is a designed in limitation in the format tool in modern Windows (to get everyone to use NTFS). Other tools can do it just fine, so you should be able to find something on the interwebs.